Friday, November 28, 2014

Weakly ...

I've not put words on this internet space in like two weeks, so I thought I would take this op to sip my Friday night sipper (It's called Purgatory and has Whiskey, Green Chartreuse and Benedictine and it's yuh-uh-um) and, ala Sarah Koenig, try to remember one thing I did each day since the last time I posted blog words.

TODAY
I overheard a little girl announce to a long line of kids who were waiting for luke warmed chocolate and a cookie: "That wasn't really Santa Claus." As the adults around her tried to reason Sure it Is! and His Beard Just Hasn't Had a Chance to Grow Yet, He's Still Got Time! she tempered her skepticism with: "Well, maybe he was the real Santa, but he was a little fake."

THURSDAY
On our way back from Eden Prairie, we yanked the car east in Hinckley to get burgers from Hardees. The Girl had been lights out until the car slowed and then she murmured a bit and Chuck looked in the backseat and sure enough she was awake. Before we even got to the drive thru window he staked his claim: "I'm not giving her any of mine," he said. This wasn't about sharing. This was about the tedious process of pinching bite-sized pieces off of a greasy, special sauce-coated slab of meat. No one wants to eat something that you've gotten that close to.

Back in the northbound lane, we struggled to eat these burgers in a respectable way. A major condiment fell into my coat, another slid between the seat and the door; Chuck, meanwhile, reported "I've already eaten so much paper." We disagreed on the quality of the special sauce, (Me: Pro, Chuck: Con). Then we resumed listening to songs like "America" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys and "Stay," as interpreted by Low -- among other songs.

WEDNESDAY
We decided to have one drink and adjourn to The Atomic Lounge where we could work on our novels: Chuck at the desktop, me making words on the Chrome. He poured us an Adam & Eve, a mix of Rye Whiskey, Sugar, Angostura Bitters and (get this noise) GALLIANO.

It. Was. Delish.

So I wrote and wrote and wrote a graduation scene set in 1994 and sipped the drink and laughed aloud and wrote some more. Chuck spun around in his office chair to ask me a question and something in the way he phrased it caused for pause. He sounded ... drunk. Meanwhile, I noticed I was basically typing with one eye closed.

One drink wonders.

So I made us a bunch of popcorn so we could collect ourselves. I meant to sprinkle mine with nutritional yeast and chili powder (my doctor's idea) but accidentally used nutritional yeast and smoked paprika. That wasn't great.

We watched "New Girl" and I waxed hysterical (in my head) about how much I love Queen of Comedy Zooey Deschanel.

OH! But the bigger thing I did: I went to war with our neighborhood grocery store.

A few weeks ago I bought 2 32 ounce cartons of soup (one vegetable broth, one butternut squash). Both have a two-part opening procedure: Twist top, puncture foil. In both cases, after twisting the top I noticed that the foil was already punctured.

Kitchen rage ensued.

I called the grocery store to tell the manager that someone was slipping cyanide into the soup cartons and he told me "Ho, ho, ho. That old problem? No, no. When you twist the top, it automatically punctures the foil!" he assured me.
"No," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"Well, that's dumb and it's never happened to me before when I've used this soup," I told him.
He assured me that the soup company was in the process of redesigning its really stupid packaging. In the meantime, he said I could exchange my soups.

I finally got there, two weeks later, and a cashier told me about another woman who had experienced this and blah blah blah.This lady returned 10. Not only that, she went to the soup aisle and opened them all to see if the foil was always punctured. "It's supposed to say on the package that this happens," she told me, but neither of us could find that small print.

Later I wandered over to the cheese aisle and found six slabs of expired Monterey Jack. I grabbed an employee and said "I just cleared out the expired cheese from this section."

He mumbled, picked up a hunk, looked at it, walked away. I decided this is who I am now: Grocery Store Police.

It's on like Donkey Kong.

TUESDAY
I talked to my mom on the phone.

MONDAY
I had like zero minutes to eat lunch, so I stuffed an original roast beef sandwich from Arby's into my face while parked next to a mail truck in the fast food parking lot. Hell yes I got Horsey Sauce.

SUNDAY
I returned a pair of boots to DSW and bought The Girl a bunch of cute things in fleece.

SATURDAY
We went to Target and I had a coupon for $10 off, but we didn't spend enough money to use it.

FRIDAY
Went to the Christmas City of the North Parade, but The Girl didn't last long enough to actually see a single float. Meanwhile, a man air-wrestling with his 9 year old was taking up a lot of space in the lobby of the Skywalk.

Turns out we went to college together. Except he was college popular and played football and I one time forgot to side-zip the denim dress I borrowed to wear to work at my internship. I would've walked into the magazine office half-naked if Minneapolis parking ramps didn't have mirrored exteriors.

2 comments:

You are really making me rethink shopping at this neighborhood grocery store. On the other hand, I stopped there on my way into town last night and when I got out of the car I realized I was wearing sweatpants. Then I remembered where I was and didn't care. That's a plus, right?